aschie30 wrote:As for Carla, I thought she really showed her chops the last few episodes (setting aside the frozen yogurt debacle which really wasn't her fault). As annoying and odd as she might be, she does seem like a nice, hardworking person, and I find myself rooting for her now. I'm still rooting for Stefan, euro-villian though he is.

Ditto, on both counts. They've actually grown on me quite a bit are both quite charming.

=R=

Tip of the hat to the editor. That was some serious misdirection. I did a double take when they called Jamie's name.

This was an amazing challenge. Granted, you can't film in Le Bernadin and have Eric Ripert on every episode, but I think everyone can agree that if you did well here, that you have what it takes to be a Top Chef. Last week's challenge? Gag.

This episode and the challenge were simple and seemed to conform themselves to Ripert's style of cooking: it required chefs to be thoughtful and possess excellent technique. I was surprised that Carla seemed to excel on both fronts. Interesting that you didn't hear much about her classical training and then got a whole whopping dose of that backstory today.

They are definitely editing it in a way that makes her seem like a late-oncoming contender like Dale (even though he had shown more creativity by this point in the competition). Still, with her quick fire last week, I think she has shown herself capable.

If you want to figure out whose going to the finals, you can determine which story line will win. Aside from Carla's seeming comeback, the other developing narratives are Europeans vs. Americans, Leah and Hosea, and Hosea vs. Stefan. One or more of these will get fleshed out and predict the finals.

My prediction? Final 3 is Stefan, Hosea and Carla. But to post a prediction publicly is to be wrong later

I thought this was a great challenge, poorly executed by the... production staff, not the chefs.

I wanted to see their analytical processes. I wanted to see the dishes as they puzzled out what went in them. Miso? Butter? How do you make that work? We got very little of that, and lots of the usual shots of people running around in a panic (but never Stefan) and soap opera sturm und drang. In the end it was very hard to follow exactly why the ones who went wrong did so-- by the time they were talking about why Leah's sauce didn't work, who remembered what it looked like?

I'm sure Bravo has focus groups that say people don't want too much food stuff, they want more of Leah and Hosea snogging and Stefan saying "douchebag." I wish for once they'd trust that the food was genuinely interesting in and of itself, and show us the chefs thinking it through.

As for Jamie, well, this is the point where one screwup is doom, there just aren't enough others to hope someone else does worse any more.

Oh, and I have to echo the comment that they've been misleading us about Carla all along, Miss Soul Food Dessert Queen turns out to speak fluent French chef. It was like finding out that one of the moms in the neighborhood is a professional hitwoman for a black book government organization.

gastro gnome wrote:If you want to figure out whose going to the finals, you can determine which story line will win. Aside from Carla's seeming comeback, the other developing narratives are Europeans vs. Americans, Leah and Hosea, and Hosea vs. Stefan. One or more of these will get fleshed out and predict the finals.

So who exactly does this theory rule out?

I too would rather the producers focus on the food, but I actually thought they did a pretty good job of that this episode. We got to really see Hosea struggle with how to create the right sear on his fish without letting the spice overwhelm it, and later learned that he should have seared first, then spiced. We learned that seasoning a braised dish can be a challenge, since as the liquid reduces, the seasonings become more concentrated, potentially leading to an oversalted, inedible dish. As well as Fabio did, we got to see how difficult it is to crust a fish with bread, and have the color come out a beautiful, evenly golden brown like Ripert's version. A lot of this stuff is beyond what I imagine your average TV viewer cares about, and I was impressed that so much serious food stuff made it through the final edit.

What I wondered was, couldn't Jamie have just watered the liquid down? Nothing wrong with a concentrated liquid that unconcentrating it won't improve at least a little... that she didn't do that suggested to me that she was done, pretty much done the moment she got the dish she liked least. I happened to watch about 20 minutes of the first episode again and besides reminding me who all those people in the opening credits are, seeing everybody bright-eyed and cheerful at the start really showed who's been worn down by the grueling pace of the contest. Stefan, Fabio, Carla and Hosea still have enthusiasm and determination; too many others, like Radhika or Jamie, eventually folded in on themselves. That Carla is now laughing about her failures and telling the judges "Don't even bother, I KNOW it's bad!" shows the confidence and perseverance too many others have not had.

Kennyz wrote:I too would rather the producers focus on the food, but I actually thought they did a pretty good job of that this episode. We got to really see Hosea struggle with how to create the right sear on his fish without letting the spice overwhelm it, and later learned that he should have seared first, then spiced. We learned that seasoning a braised dish can be a challenge, since as the liquid reduces, the seasonings become more concentrated, potentially leading to an oversalted, inedible dish. As well as Fabio did, we got to see how difficult it is to crust a fish with bread, and have the color come out a beautiful, evenly golden brown like Ripert's version. A lot of this stuff is beyond what I imagine your average TV viewer cares about, and I was impressed that so much serious food stuff made it through the final edit.

Not to mention the fact that monkfish needs to rest, Carla could detect that the bearnaise wasn't a true bearnaise, there is a proper way to cut the head off of a fish (sloppy, Fabio), and you need a hammer & nail to skin an eel*.

I am very disappointed by the exit of Jamie. She was one of the few chefs that had a personal culinary style that interested me and actually made me want to visit her restaurant.

Best,
Michael

*That marked two things in one episode that I knew about seafood that the head chef of a seafood restaurant did not know. Really makes me wonder about the rest of Hosea's body of knowledge.

Mike G wrote:What I wondered was, couldn't Jamie have just watered the liquid down? Nothing wrong with a concentrated liquid that unconcentrating it won't improve at least a little... that she didn't do that suggested to me that she was done, pretty much done the moment she got the dish she liked least. I happened to watch about 20 minutes of the first episode again and besides reminding me who all those people in the opening credits are, seeing everybody bright-eyed and cheerful at the start really showed who's been worn down by the grueling pace of the contest. Stefan, Fabio, Carla and Hosea still have enthusiasm and determination; too many others, like Radhika or Jamie, eventually folded in on themselves. That Carla is now laughing about her failures and telling the judges "Don't even bother, I KNOW it's bad!" shows the confidence and perseverance too many others have not had.

Mike - there celery itself was too salty. Even if she had time to fix the liquid, she couldn't fix the celery.

Did anyone catch Ripert say that they don't cook the Asparagus? That was a surprise and I'm convinced I'm missing something.

Colicchio notes a different way to skin an eel on his blog, which does not involve a hammer and nail.

Mike G wrote:What I wondered was, couldn't Jamie have just watered the liquid down?

I think it came down to the fact that the celery had absorbed a significant amount of salt from the braising liquid. I believe Collichio specifically called the celery "a salt lick". (I think what she did was essentially the equivalent of brining the celery).

Either she over-seasoned the liquid at the beginning and didn't realize it until the end, or she had the heat too high and the liquid reduced down too far, too fast.

Darren72 wrote:Colicchio notes a different way to skin an eel on his blog, which does not involve a hammer and nail.

Yes, but I believe the hammer & nail technique is very common (especially since I've heard it and seen it from a wide variety of sources).

To be fair, they sort of made it unclear whether Hosea didn't know that monkfish needed to rest, or simply ran out of time. The fact that they made it unclear makes me suspect the latter.

I have to say, losing an eelskinning challenge to an Austrian chef is sort of like inner city kids doing badly on the SAT questions about yachting.

eatchicago wrote:*That marked two things in one episode that I knew about seafood that the head chef of a seafood restaurant did not know. Really makes me wonder about the rest of Hosea's body of knowledge.

Keep in mind that Hosea is a seafood chef in . . . Boulder, Colorado. Don't know what kind of a restaurant that is, or what the clientele in landlocked Boulder demand or eat, or how wide-ranging the product is that he works with. It's entirely conceivable that eel would not be a featured menu item. (Isn't eel usually something that goes into something else? I'd expect to see eel come up more within the context of Mediterranean/ethnic restaurants.) Given that he admitted that he is not a schooled chef, I would think his exposure to seafood is only on-the-job; so I'd imagine that Hosea's restaurant serves more lobster tail than anything really complex or unusual.

Mike G wrote:That Carla is now laughing about her failures and telling the judges "Don't even bother, I KNOW it's bad!" shows the confidence and perseverance too many others have not had.

Carla was really impressive in that regard. She knew she blew it, she admitted it, finessed it, and moved on. She handled that really well. I agree with previous commenters (as well as Dmnkly on skilletdoux) that either Carla's been lying low or the producers kept her real talents concealed. A friend mentioned that Carla talked about being French-trained in the beginning of the season, but I feel like it wasn't until Blue Hill that I got a sense for her cooking.

Edited to change "Denver" to "Boulder."

aschie30 wrote:

eatchicago wrote:*That marked two things in one episode that I knew about seafood that the head chef of a seafood restaurant did not know. Really makes me wonder about the rest of Hosea's body of knowledge.

Keep in mind that Hosea is a seafood chef in . . . Denver. Don't know what kind of a restaurant that is, or what the clientele in landlocked Denver demand or eat, or how wide-ranging the product is that he works with. It's entirely conceivable that eel would not be a featured menu item. (Isn't eel usually something that goes into something else? I'd expect to see eel come up more within the context of Mediterranean/ethnic restaurants.) Given that he admitted that he is not a schooled chef, I would think his exposure to seafood is only on-the-job; so I'd imagine that Hosea's restaurant serves more lobster tail than anything really complex or unusual.

I'm fully aware of where he works.

It doesn't change what he doesn't know.

Yes, the amusement of the seafood-chef-in-Colorado thing occurred to me, too. My guess is, eel was last served in Denver in 1927, when Karl Ochsenpfefferhausen, chef at Rathskeller Zum Guten Abends, keeled over after preparing a 19-course meal for "Silver Jim" Costello and his fellow plutocrats.

Mike G wrote:Yes, the amusement of the seafood-chef-in-Colorado thing occurred to me, too. My guess is, eel was last served in Denver in 1927, when Karl Ochsenpfefferhausen, chef at Rathskeller Zum Guten Abends, keeled over after preparing a 19-course meal for "Silver Jim" Costello and his fellow plutocrats.

FWIW, here's the dinner menu at JAX Fish House in Boulder, where Hosea works. It's only slightly more diverse in offerings than the seafood portion of an Appleby's or Houlihan's menu.

Darren72 wrote:So who exactly does this theory rule out?

There are only 5 contestants left. The editors would be doing a bad job if any of them lacked a storyline. The theory suggests that picking out the dominant storyline(s) will predict the finals.

aschie30 wrote:

Mike G wrote:Yes, the amusement of the seafood-chef-in-Colorado thing occurred to me, too. My guess is, eel was last served in Denver in 1927, when Karl Ochsenpfefferhausen, chef at Rathskeller Zum Guten Abends, keeled over after preparing a 19-course meal for "Silver Jim" Costello and his fellow plutocrats.

FWIW, here's the dinner menu at JAX Fish House in Boulder, where Hosea works. It's only slightly more diverse in offerings than the seafood portion of an Appleby's or Houlihan's menu.

I'm not sure where we're going with this. Are we supposed to be grading him on a curve because his restaurant is lame?

eatchicago wrote:

aschie30 wrote:

eatchicago wrote:*That marked two things in one episode that I knew about seafood that the head chef of a seafood restaurant did not know. Really makes me wonder about the rest of Hosea's body of knowledge.

Keep in mind that Hosea is a seafood chef in . . . Denver. Don't know what kind of a restaurant that is, or what the clientele in landlocked Denver demand or eat, or how wide-ranging the product is that he works with. It's entirely conceivable that eel would not be a featured menu item. (Isn't eel usually something that goes into something else? I'd expect to see eel come up more within the context of Mediterranean/ethnic restaurants.) Given that he admitted that he is not a schooled chef, I would think his exposure to seafood is only on-the-job; so I'd imagine that Hosea's restaurant serves more lobster tail than anything really complex or unusual.

I'm fully aware of where he works.

It doesn't change what he doesn't know.

Sure, but I don't have high expectations for a seafood chef in Colorado. Frankly, I would have been much more surprised if Fabio showed that he didn't know how to skin eel, even if Fabio never worked in a seafood restaurant in his life.

eatchicago wrote:

aschie30 wrote:

Mike G wrote:Yes, the amusement of the seafood-chef-in-Colorado thing occurred to me, too. My guess is, eel was last served in Denver in 1927, when Karl Ochsenpfefferhausen, chef at Rathskeller Zum Guten Abends, keeled over after preparing a 19-course meal for "Silver Jim" Costello and his fellow plutocrats.

FWIW, here's the dinner menu at JAX Fish House in Boulder, where Hosea works. It's only slightly more diverse in offerings than the seafood portion of an Appleby's or Houlihan's menu.

I'm not sure where we're going with this. Are we supposed to be grading him on a curve because his restaurant is lame?

Not grading on a curve, but the fact that he didn't exactly have a wide base of knowledge about seafood (or using ethnic spices, for that matter), doesn't shock me given his job experience. The fact that he is a seafood chef at some seemingly mediocre restaurant in Boulder probably wouldn't give him that much of an advantage in getting a job at L.20 or Le Bernadin, so I wouldn't expect it would give him any advantage in this competition, either.

I'm not sure where we're going with this. Are we supposed to be grading him on a curve because his restaurant is lame?

No, I think we're just observing that the effort to make amusing grossout TV (skin an eel!) would have been more exciting if the outcome (the Austrian knows how, the graduate of Rocky Mountain High doesn't) couldn't be seen coming from 500 miles away. That said, it's not exactly like they beat him up for it, so injustice was hardly done, though by the end I was hoping Fabio would win once just so Stefan wouldn't win once.

Mike G wrote:Yes, the amusement of the seafood-chef-in-Colorado thing occurred to me, too.

You realize, of course, that this is a Chicago forum. Seems odd for anyone here to look down on another city for lack of fresh fish.

DML wrote:

Mike G wrote:Yes, the amusement of the seafood-chef-in-Colorado thing occurred to me, too.

You realize, of course, that this is a Chicago forum. Seems odd for anyone here to look down on another city for lack of fresh fish.

Gotta say I agree with this sentiment. Hosea has given us enough opportunities to poke fun of him without having to disparage his home and assume he doesn't get decent product

Obviously Hosea was not a fan of Iron Chef Japan, where eel was skinned at least once using the nail through the head method. I was much more surprised that he was so unfamiliar with Zatar than with skinning eels, whic I doubt more than a handful of restaurants in the US serve.

rickster wrote:Obviously Hosea was not a fan of Iron Chef Japan, where eel was skinned at least once using the nail through the head method. I was much more surprised that he was so unfamiliar with Zatar than with skinning eels, whic I doubt more than a handful of restaurants in the US serve.

That Hosea had never cleaned an eel doesn't bother me as much as it seems to bother others. If his restaurant doesn't serve them, it doesn't serve them, and I don't expect him to have filleted every fish to swim the seven seas.

That I knew more about how an eel is cleaned than the executive chef of a seafood restaurant is... amusing.

aschie30 wrote:FWIW, here's the dinner menu at JAX Fish House in Boulder, where Hosea works. It's only slightly more diverse in offerings than the seafood portion of an Appleby's or Houlihan's menu.

This is quite unfair. I've eaten at Jax and it's very good. The cocktails are also very good. I'm not sure why a comparison of menus at Jax and Applyby's would be a credible indication of anything (they both serve calamari and catfish, therefore....). But since you brought it up, the dishes and ingredient choices at Jax are clearly at a much higher level, in my opinion.

aschie30 wrote:Sure, but I don't have high expectations for a seafood chef in Colorado. Frankly, I would have been much more surprised if Fabio showed that he didn't know how to skin eel, even if Fabio never worked in a seafood restaurant in his life.

Do you have high expectations for a seafood restaurant in Chicago? Most seafood arrives in Colorado and Chicago (and NY) frozen. Clearly, the eel wasn't frozen but you seem to be making a more general point here and I'm not sure what exactly it is.

Dmnkly wrote:That I knew more about how an eel is cleaned than the executive chef of a seafood restaurant is... amusing.

This is exactly my point.

Darren72 wrote:

aschie30 wrote:FWIW, here's the dinner menu at JAX Fish House in Boulder, where Hosea works. It's only slightly more diverse in offerings than the seafood portion of an Appleby's or Houlihan's menu.

This is quite unfair. I've eaten at Jax and it's very good. The cocktails are also very good. I'm not sure why a comparison of menus at Jax and Applyby's would be a credible indication of anything (they both serve calamari and catfish, therefore....). But since you brought it up, the dishes and ingredient choices at Jax are clearly at a much higher level, in my opinion.

Not to sideline this thread on this issue any more than it already has been, but my point was not about the quality of seafood at Jax or how well it is prepared (and BTW, I'd expect that both the quality and preparation at Jax would be much better than Appleby's). My point was that, in the context of the above discussion, Jax does not appear to have a terribly diverse menu of seafood or, put differently, the variety of seafood is pretty mainstream and not terribly different than what you see at most chain restaurants. Opinions may differ on this and there's no need to sideline in that direction, but I'm not terribly surprised that the chef at a place like Jax -- your good experiences aside -- would not know how to skin an eel. It's no real negative reflection on Hosea IMHO -- as Dmnkly said -- he knows how to prepare what his restaurant serves. Contrast that with someone who works at Le Bernadin, or even a small restaurant in Sicily -- chefs at both restaurants probably have more experience dealing with a more diverse range of seafood or even processing seafood if it comes off a boat 100 steps from the restaurant than, say, someone who gets a shipment of frozen lobster tails daily. (In the case of Le Bernadin, it would come off a plane, but the nature of Le Bernadin's business is such that, their chefs get to work with a broad range of stuff.) I think it's just a reality -- Jax is a business that has to make money, as does Shaw's, Joe's Stone Crab, etc. and their menus are augmented so that they serve what their clients want, which is not likely to be eel. That's all my point was.

Having said that -- to eatchicago's and Dmnkly's points somewhat -- it'd be nice, really nice, if Hosea, being a seafood chef and therefore presumably someone who is passionate about seafood and cooking it, reading about it, etc., knew the first thing about skinning an eel. But he didn't. Oh well.

Not to belabor the point, Aschie30...I still think the range of food at his restaurant is a non sequitur. Had he known how to skin an eel, the story would be "of course a guy who works at a seafood restaurant knows how to skin an eel". Instead, the story is "The seafood restaurant is so mainstream, why would he ever skin an eel?". I don't think we learn anything useful by pushing the link between his restaurant and his performance.

For that matter, based on Stephanie Izard's restaurant, I would have thought she would do more seafood on Top Chef.

You realize, of course, that this is a Chicago forum. Seems odd for anyone here to look down on another city for lack of fresh fish.

Here, we at least have lakes.

In any case, having grown up in Kansas, I reserve the right to be amused by the idea of seafood restaurants that far inland in the midwest. More fish sticks, anyone?